Senator Platt, I believe, was quite sincere in his opposition.  He did not believe in popular rule, and he did believe that the big business men were entitled to have things their way.  He profoundly distrusted the people—­naturally enough, for the kind of human nature with which a boss comes in contact is not of an exalted type.  He felt that anarchy would come if there was any interference with a system by which the people in mass were, under various necessary cloaks, controlled by the leaders in the political and business worlds.  He wrote me a very strong letter of protest against my attitude, expressed in dignified, friendly, and temperate language, but using one word in a curious way.  This was the word “altruistic.”  He stated in his letter that he had not objected to my being independent in politics, because he had been sure that I had the good of the party at heart, and meant to act fairly and honorably; but that he had been warned, before I became a candidate, by a number of his business friends that I was a dangerous man because I was “altruistic,” and that he now feared that my conduct would justify the alarm thus expressed.  I was interested in this, not only because Senator Platt was obviously sincere, but because of the way in which he used “altruistic” as a term of reproach, as if it was Communistic or Socialistic—­the last being a word he did use to me when, as now and then happened, he thought that my proposals warranted fairly reckless vituperation.

Senator Platt’s letter ran in part as follows: 

“When the subject of your nomination was under consideration, there was one matter that gave me real anxiety.  I think you will have no trouble in appreciating the fact that it was not the matter of your independence.  I think we have got far enough along in our political acquaintance for you to see that my support in a convention does not imply subsequent ‘demands,’ nor any other relation that may not reasonably exist for the welfare of the party. . . .  The thing that did bother me was this:  I had heard from a good many sources that you were a little loose on the relations of capital and labor, on trusts and combinations, and, indeed, on those numerous questions which have recently arisen in politics affecting the security of earnings and the right of a man to run his own business in his own way, with due respect of course to the Ten Commandments and the Penal Code.  Or, to get at it even more clearly, I understood from a number of business men, and among them many of your own personal friends, that you entertained various altruistic ideas, all very well in their way, but which before they could safely be put into law needed very profound consideration. . . .  You have just adjourned a Legislature which created a good opinion throughout the State.  I congratulate you heartily upon this fact because I sincerely believe, as everybody else does, that this good impression exists very largely as a result of your personal influence in the Legislative chambers.  But at the last moment, and to my very great surprise, you did a thing which has caused the business community of New York to wonder how far the notions of Populism, as laid down in Kansas and Nebraska, have taken hold upon the Republican party of the State of New York.”